Beware Poisonous Sapote

Last week, the General Topics Digest discussed the virtues of using the sapote pit as a spice, but alert hounds brought up the fact that one fruit commonly called “sapote” has a poisonous seed.

The mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota) is the fruit with the edible pit that can be used as a spice. The seed of the botanically unrelated white sapote (Casimiroa edulis), on the other hand, can be fatally toxic, says alkapal.

The pit of the non-poisonous mamey sapote is known as pixtli in Mexico, says Eat_Nopal, and is commonly used in moles in the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz.